Consolidation beneath Circular Skirted Foundations
Publication: International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 10, Issue 1
Abstract
The effect of foundation embedment on consolidation has not been considered previously in a systematic manner, although this is of particular interest for offshore foundations, where embedment is provided by skirts that enclose a compressible soil plug. For skirted foundations, critical uncertainties include what to assume in terms of the degree of drainage at skirt tip level, and the relative time scales of consolidation within the soil plug and beneath the foundation. In this paper, results from small strain finite-element analyses are used to quantify the immediate and time-dependent response of circular skirted foundations to uniaxial vertical loading. Foundations with frictionless and fully rough skirt-soil interfaces with varying ratio of embedment depth to foundation diameter are considered and the responses compared with those for surface foundations. The findings show that both skirt-soil interface roughness and embedment ratio have a significant effect on the consolidation response.
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Acknowledgments
The work described here forms part of the activities of the Centre for Offshore Foundation Systems, established under the Australian Research Council’s Research Centres Program, and now supported through Grant Nos. UNSPECIFIEDFF0561473 and UNSPECIFIEDDP0988904 and Centre of Excellence funding from the State of Western Australia. This support is gratefully acknowledged.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 10 • Issue 1 • February 2010
Pages: 22 - 29
Copyright
© 2010 ASCE.
History
Received: Feb 6, 2008
Accepted: Sep 1, 2009
Published online: Jan 15, 2010
Published in print: Feb 2010
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